


Prompt: Ants on my skin

by EssayOfThoughts



Series: MCU Maximoff Oneshots [154]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dead Tony Stark, Gen, Nights of Wundagore References, tony stark is dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-05 05:54:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14037606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: The noises beyond their stone shell, bricks shifting, voices shouting, the light flashing, lighting the nameStark- dark -Stark- dark -Stark-And then the light breaks through the darkness and she cansee.





	Prompt: Ants on my skin

**Author's Note:**

> So this was written listening to a variety of music, but mostly, by the time of the latter half, _[Stronger](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsO6ZnUZI0g)_.
> 
> The premise of this fic is: Tony is dead before the events of AOU; does AOU even happen under those circumstances? In this case... no. Instead I've wrangled something akin to Nights of Wundagore, because lets have some classic comics in here. You can read the original prompt for this fic over on my tumblr, [Here](http://essayofthoughts.tumblr.com/post/172076264980/what-if-tony-was-dead-before-aou-how-might-things).

**i.** **  
** They learn that Stark is dead one cold morning as they trudge through snow and slush to get to school. It is on the newspapers, headlines screaming, the news on the televisions in the little corner shops on the way. The twins stop still to stare.

“He’s…,” Pietro tries. “But-”

He does not have to finish his sentence; the thought was shared.  _ We were to kill him! _

Wanda reaches a gloved hand to take her brother’s and they stand awhile in sprinkling snow. 

“Come along brother,” Wanda whispers eventually. “School.”

 

* * *

 

**ii.**   
They are silent at school. Silent in the streets. Some part of their inner fire has burned low, been doused. They are quiet, and it seems wrong.

“He’s  _ gone,” _ Pietro says when they return to the ruined church. “He’s  _ dead.” _ He kicks a brick, a piece of fallen rubble, venting anger and frustration. “It should have been-”

Wanda’s hand wraps around his, pulls him still. Their foreheads brush. “I know,” she whispers. “But it is not. We will never have our vengeance, never justice for our parents-”

Pietro’s eyes boring into hers are lost. “So what do we  _ do?” _

 

* * *

 

**iii.**   
The days, weeks, months, _ years _ … they pass slowly. Without their drive, their singular goal, time does not blur into the lines of their progress, does not simplify around points in their plan and pattern. Instead there is a day and another day. And another day, and another, and another. Another day, hour, minute. Another second.

“We cannot do  _ nothing!” _ Pietro screams one day.

“Then what would you have us do?” Wanda retorts. “What would you have us do, brother? Rage on the streets? Throw firebombs at the Ministers?  _ What would you have us do?” _

There is a fever-light in her brother’s eyes.

 

* * *

 

**iv.**   
The protests… the protests become life itself. They rage and scream, their voices rise in glorious cacophony and once again fire and drive are alight in their hearts. They scream and they chant, raise their fists and voices until their throats are hoarse from screaming. And then they continue.

“Justice for Sokovia!” they yell. “No more soldiers, no more bombs. Freedom and justice!”

The justice they did not have before.

 

* * *

 

**v.**   
“We offer a chance,” the man calls out. “To all who are willing to take their fates into their own two hands. To any who wish freedom for Sokovia. The power to make things right. The power to  _ fight.” _

The man smiles like a knifeblade, and at Wanda’s side Pietro leans forward, eager and wary at once. Eager and wary and  _ hopeful. _

“Join us,” says the man. “Join us and we will give you all the strength you need to see your country healed. To put your country on the map.”

“Sokovia is on the bloody map,” Wanda spits. A fleck of it lands on the man’s shiny shoes. “But everyone thinks they should get a piece of us all the same. Why should we trust you?”

The man mock-sighs, smiles a snake-charming smile at them. Spreads his hands. “Trust? I do not think you trust anyone. But you have seen the evidence of what we can do in the news, I trust? Our Avengers?”

There is a heart-stuttering moment of disbelief. But… the men beside this be-labcoated man, they wear black armour with the SHIELD eagle emblazoned on the shoulder. They wear the same clothes as those who cleaned up New York after the Chitauri, who turned everything shiny and new in a country where everything always had to be shiny and new.

And now… now they were here.

 

* * *

 

**vi.**   
When they go into the castle they are still half-children.

When they emerge they are… something new.

 

* * *

 

**vii.**   
Wanda twists power around her hands, and it coils like an obedient serpent. She lets it seep from her palms, rise from her wrists and it  _ rises _ , rises so readily and  _ red. _ It reminds her of their mother, long dead. Of the scarlet she spoke of, of the  _ magic. _

In the next cell Pietro sprints, and stops, and starts again.

 

* * *

 

**viii.**   
“Brother-”

“Sister-”

They collide in a tangle of limbs, arms reaching, hands touching, checking. Fingers frame faces, brush back hair. Their foreheads touch.

“You made it,” Pietro whispers, rubs his cheek against Wanda’s. She can feel the slight growth of stubble. She holds him close and nods.

“Of course I did,” she says. “Of course  _ we _ did.”

There has always been power in their veins, after all, from their mother’s ancient sorcery.

 

* * *

 

**ix.**   
They are trusted. Doctor List kept his end of the bargain, so they have offered trust in turn, listened to what has been asked of them - to stay, to wait, to let them check and test. They acquiesce with wariness, but not unwillingly.

The bargain has been kept on one end. Now it is up to them. 

They sit in their cells, are allowed free rein in the small loop of chambers they go to - their cells, the washblock, the cafeteria and the labs - and lean against one another, lean into one another’s warm shoulders.

“We made it,” Pietro says, and he is half in awe as he stares at his hands. If he does not focus, his hands turn into a blur of blue. Beside him Wanda’s eyes are seeping scarlet bright enough to glow through her lids. Pietro’s head, cushioned by his fast-bleaching curls, leans gently against hers. “We-” he cuts himself off. “What now?” he asks Wanda. “What do we do now?”

Wanda’s eyes stay closed, but the red does not abate. It rises, rises and grows, brighter and stronger, until the world around her flashes into her mind’s eye, a perfect image. The cells, the people, the minds. A sense of place and purpose and a sense of those of everyone else. The castle, the chambers, the soldiers and technicians. The vast caves beneath, the mountain at their back. The minds, bright-glowing after bright-glowing, in her sight.

Wanda leans against her brother, lets his blue-shivering hand rub soothing patterns on her shoulder.

“We wait.”

 

* * *

 

**x.**   
The castle is… it bustles and moves, in constant motion. Soldiers and agents enter and leave, a regular churn of activity, never still, even when they are sleeping. The sceptre which gave them their powers is carefully contained, locked deep beneath, bound up in studies to try to understand what it can do, what it has done, how it unlocked abilities in them but in no one else.

All the while the twins wait, wait and watch, wait to see what they will be asked to do. And, while they wait, they train.

Pietro’s speed grows ever faster, tames more readily to his control. He still runs into the walls in the night, when his nightmares startle him to wakefulness before he can control it. Wanda’s mind stretches farther, the scarlet reaching out of her fingers to move not just wooden blocks but bullets and guns, to move  _ thoughts. _ Her senses sharpen with these things too - in her mind’s eye she sees more than just the castle, but the distant glow of Novi Grad, the warm fire like embers and ash in the depths of the mountain, beneath even the castle’s deep cells and caverns.

Something about that buried sight, glowing red like blood and fire, worries Wanda, and she knows not why.

 

* * *

 

**xi.**   
“Soon,” Strucker says when they ask. “Soon we will be ready, soon  _ you _ will be ready. Soon we will make Sokovia great again.”

They leave his office as they have every time before. Feeling as though they have gained nothing, learned nothing, and come no further.

They walk back down to their cells, pace through corridor after corridor to the depths where they are kept, far from the light of day, like a secret that should not be spoken of.

It’s not cold, not really. The walls of the castle are thick, the space-heaters many, the many bodies filling the castle making sure no part of it never feels empty or cold, abandoned or alone.

All the same, Wanda shivers, rubs her bare arms. "Something is wrong, Pietro," she says. "I can  _ feel _ it. Like ants on my skin."

 

* * *

 

**xii.**   
The  _ something wrong _ comes through in her nightmares, bright and blinding and in such a way she cannot forget.

She closes her eyes, dreams the world around her - her brother’s bright blue mind, calm and clear, fast as lightning but steady all the same - and stretches further. The embers beneath the mountain, beneath the caves are beyond her reach but all the rest…. Her mind reaches outwards, and outwards and she spins down and down within her mind, into old fears and old nightmares, rubble and dust, the flashing light of an awaiting bomb.

The noises beyond their stone shell, bricks shifting, voices shouting, the light flashing, lighting the name  _ Stark _ \- dark -  _ Stark _ \- dark -  _ Stark _ -

And then the light breaks through the darkness and she can  _ see. _

 

* * *

 

**xiii.**   
“HYDRA,” she gasps to Pietro, hand on his shoulder. He’s bleary, barely awake, so she shakes him again. “They’re  _ HYDRA _ , not SHIELD, never SHIELD. They lied, Pietro, they-”

“HYDRA?” he asks, and Wanda almost wants to beat his head against a wall for never paying attention in class.

“Nazis,” she whispers. “They are  _ Nazis.” _

There is no further discussion. They vanish from the castle in a bright blur of blue.

 

* * *

 

**xiv.**   
It is as they are sprinting down towards Novi Grad that a craft skims over the treetops.

“Wanda-” Pietro says, spinning on his heel to a halt in the snow. “Wanda what is-”

Wanda pushes against his shoulder, makes him set her down, bare feet on bare soil beneath snow.

Her eyes are scarlet. 

“Avengers,” she breathes, and gathers scarlet in her palm. “They have come.”

 

* * *

 

**xv.**   
Their return to the castle is no slower than their departure. Pietro’s blue is bright and blurring, limning his edges and Wanda’s scarlet is blinding burgundy, fierce in her hands and eyes, ready to cast outwards with all her force.

They still don’t know what it is her, scarlet, the technicians said it is some kind of chaotic energy, but Pietro, fearless, kissed her scarlet fingers and called it “Mama’s magic.”

Wanda thinks on that, thinks on their mother’s quiet strength, and summons up the same in herself. 

“When they attack,” Wanda says to Pietro, “We join them.”

 

* * *

 

**xvi.**   
The castle crumbles beneath the onslaught. Strikes come from a flying suit in grey, lightning falling from the raised hammer of a god. On the ground a green shape rushes forwards, unstoppable as the winds and snow of winter, in his shadow follow an assassin and an archer. Between them all, unafraid, America’s Captain marches onwards, shield on his arm.

The twins wait in the shadows of bare trees, and watch.

The castle, high on the rise, has always been there. It was there, their mother had said, when she had crossed the mountain from Transia. It was there when their home had fell, their parents died. It was there as the riots rose, it was there around them and now….

It fell.

 

* * *

 

**xvii.**   
Out of the castle’s crumbling walls rises a force wrapped in blood and shadow.

“Wanda,” Pietro whispers, blue shudders wracking his frame in his desperation to leave, sister in his arms. “Wanda, what  _ is that?” _

 

* * *

 

**xviii.**   
A fist of scarlet and shadow rises from the mountain, an inhuman scream of rocks and rubble, and even the green form of Hulk is thrown backwards by the flying debris.

Somehow the scream of rock and rubble, of the mountain itself, turns to laughter.

 

* * *

 

**xix.**   
“Take me closer.” 

Pietro is still at her side until Wanda’s hand takes his. 

“Pietro.” His eyes are wide with fear, his edges light with shining blue, his form shuddering and shaking with the simple force of  _ staying. _ “Pietro,” she says, her hand tight on his. “We have the power now.” Her eyes shine scarlet, her hands glow. “Mama’s magic. It cannot hurt us.”

Pietro’s arms close around her, lift her feet from bare soil and loose snow.

And the world blurs.

 

* * *

 

**xx.**   
Wanda is set down and plucked back up in bare moments, sheer seconds, Pietro a blur of bright blue around her. Her hands cast scarlet out, her eyes alight with it, her mind’s eye filled with the world sketched out around her, bright and crystal clear in greyscale so even in all her brother’s fast-blurred speed she knows where to move, where to strike, where to shield.

Around them, barely aware of their speeding presence, the Avengers march onwards.

 

* * *

 

**xxi.**   
“Who are you?” the archer says when Pietro pushes him out of the way of a blood-and-shadow blast of power. 

Pietro laughs tightly, fear and anxiety and adrenaline mixing into some semblance of humour. “Lab rats,” he says. “What about you?”

 

* * *

 

**xxii.**   
The castle crumbles, the castle falls. The figure in its midst, wreathed in shadow and smoke and a light like blood, becomes gradually visible.

“Strucker,” breathes Wanda. “But that- his mind-”

“I did not think your world had demons,” says the god, feet planted firmly on the ground as he spins his hammer faster to lift off once more. “Interesting.”

 

* * *

 

**xxiii.**   
The shadow form is shackled in lightning. The castle, all its inhabitants, are crumbled and fallen, barring its most buried aspects, its most hidden secrets. Wanda can see their scattered glow far beneath, hidden throughout cavern after cavern. Beneath even that the blood-ember of the mountain is bright-dim, reaching forwards to give up its light to something  _ here. _

“The mountain,” she whispers to Pietro. Her hand is light on his arm, her chin almost on his shoulder. “It is-” The Avengers are drawing close, they all move together towards the shackled figure of what was once Strucker. “The  _ something wrong,” _ she says. “It was more than HYDRA.”

 

* * *

 

**xxiv.**   
“Little witch,” says the creature in Strucker’s skin. “ _ There _ you are.”

His voice is a hissing rattle, bones and boulders, deep and quiet, like the mountain above them and beneath.

“What are you?” asks the Captain. The creature, whatever it is, turns like hawk, as fast as a snake, to look at him.

“You don’t know,” the creature says. “None of you. Even the witch.”

“Demon,” says Thor. “That’s what you are.”

The creature laughs in its shackles of lightning.

And it strikes.

 

* * *

 

**xxv.**   
Wanda screams, crumpling down. The creature - all blood and shadows - is a vice around her mind, crushing her down,  _ killing her _ all within the sheer space of her own skull.

_ Little witch, _ it whispers.  _ Oh little witch. You will be a good vessel to show my might to the world. _

 

* * *

 

**xxvi.**   
The man shackled in lightning has fallen to the ground. No more nimbus of power, he is but a man, but a human,  _ Strucker _ , a horror who wrought horrors on others, but still no more than a man.

Pietro does not care about the shell of a man who did nothing but lie to them. He cares about his sister, crumpled and screaming on the stone floor of the castle courtyard.

 

* * *

 

**xxvii.**   
_ Little witch, little witch, _ the voice whispers. Taunts.  _ Little witch. Bow before the might of Chthon. _

The rubble is all around, the dust. Dark and horrible, and not even the flashing light of Stark’s bomb to illuminate the blackness. Just shadow and shadow and trickling blood.

There is no Pietro with her.

_ So much power, _ the voice whispers.  _ So much. Almost the Aether itself, in your blood! Your mother made anew, made more. _

Her mother is dead. Her father. There is no Pietro with her.

_ Give up, little witch. Give in. _

 

* * *

 

**xxviii.**   
“Wanda!” Pietro’s hands cup his sister’s face, brush back hair. Beneath them, his sister shakes and screams, screams and wails, wails… wails and whimpers. “Wanda,” he murmurs.  _ Wanda. You are stronger than this. _

 

* * *

 

**xxix.**   
The rubble crushes. The dust takes all air from her lungs. Beneath her, in the pitch blackness, she knows her parent’s bodies lie. She saw the flash of blood on something far below.

There is no Pietro with her.

 

* * *

 

**xxx.**   
“Kid.” The Captain’s hand is a gentle weight on Pietro’s shoulder. “What-”

“The demon,” Thor says. “I have seen their like before, but not one so powerful. It was in Strucker, it will try to take this witch.”

Pietro’s hands are shaking into blue as he cups his sister’s cheeks.

 

* * *

 

**xxxi.**   
Shadows. Blood. Rubble and dust. This is all the world. One second. Two. A moment more. The rubble shifts, the shadows move.

The blood remains.

_ Yes, little witch. Give in. There is nothing here for you anymore. _

Country destroyed. Home gone. Hope gone. Her brother-

She does not know where her brother is.

 

* * *

 

**xxxii.**   
“The sceptre,” Pietro says, shuddering in and out of blue, as he paces back and forth around the Avengers as they move. Wanda is cradled in the Captain’s arms. The vast green form - Hulk - has shrunk back into a man, Strucker is carried over Thor’s shoulder like an unwieldy sack. The grey suit emerged from rubble clasping the sceptre.

“Keep that away from us,” Pietro says. “That is what did this to us. To her.”

In the Captain’s arms, Wanda is terribly still and quiet.

 

* * *

 

**xxxiii.**   
Shadows. Blood. Dust and rubble. It is crushing. She cannot breathe. Does not have the space, does not have the air.

The blood is trickling from her fingers, from her veins.

 

* * *

 

**xxxiv.**   
“Wanda,” Pietro breathes, his fingers tracing Wanda’s face, limned in blue. 

“Here,” says the man that had been Hulk, waving something at him. “Here, let me-”

He places something around Wanda’s head, small nubs touching Wanda’s forehead and scalp. Then he’s at a screen, tapping on a map of a brain.

“Okay,” he says. “What ha-  _ what the hell?” _

 

* * *

 

**xxxv.**   
There is no Pietro with her. There is nothing with her. Just a void and the whispers of her doubt.

_ Little witch, little witch. So little she could not fight. So little to fight was to fail. _

The shadows grow larger. The blood bleeds out faster.

_ Goodbye, little witch. _

 

* * *

 

**xxxvi.**   
_ Wanda, _ Pietro thinks. His fingers tangle in his sister’s hair, her weight is warm across his lap.  _ Wanda, Wanda, Wanda. Wanda please. _ He leans down, presses a kiss to her forehead as behind him the man that had been Hulk taps and talks.

_ You always were the stronger of us. _

 

* * *

 

**xxxvii.**   
The darkness is everywhere. The darkness is all around. The darkness is everything, a vast void to sink into and be lost in.

Wanda falls, and lets herself fall.

She has failed. Failed and lost. Her blood is gone. She could not breathe. 

Then there is something bright and blue.

 

* * *

 

**xxxviii.**   
He knots his fingers with hers, tangles them in her hair. Cradles her in his lap like they were still children. “Wanda,” he breathes, words ghosting over her skin and then Sokovian- “Come back to me. Come back, come back.”  _ Wanda. _

And everything is red.

 

* * *

 

**xxxix.**   
She can see the blood. See the shadow. See her scarlet and she sends it out in scythes as fast and deadly as she can.

_ Little witch, _ says the voice.  _ Little witch,  _ **_give up._ **

Wanda snarls in scarlet, and does not.

 

* * *

 

**xxxx.**   
_ The world is unjust, sister-mine. The world is wrong. The world is not fair. _

Wanda is thrashing, scarlet glowing, scarlet  _ cutting. _ He does not care. He holds her close.

_ We make it just. We make it right. We make it fair. Justice and vengeance, wrongs made right. That is why we protested. All our anger, for good. _

The scream that pours from Wanda’s throat is unearthly. The scarlet is bright, the blood-red brighter, and it vents out of her vents  _ away _ , trying to flee, trying to run-

“No you don’t,” says Thor, hammer bright-glowing with sparks and static. “You do not get to try again.”

Wanda’s mouth snaps shut, her scarlet falls still and silent into her skin.

And the form of blood and shadow is carried on the edge of Thor’s hammer into the mountain.

 

* * *

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment, or come and yell at me at my [blog](http://essayofthoughts.tumblr.com/).


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